Starting an online store
In EcommerceAre you thinking of starting an online store (shopping website / ecommerce website / online shop / online bossiness) ? if Yes; then this tutorial will may help you choosing the right path for you. It will be in different parts first i will talk about the possible solutions available to start your online business. Please keep in mind this article is for client to business relation.
Before you read this article you should have clear idea of the following things:
- What is the nature of your business (I assume its selling stuff)
- Who are your target customers
- Are they returning customers
- At what scale you are going to start
- What will be your future expansions
Those were some common questions you should know the answer or at least have some idea, Because i will be using these points in my tutorials to explain how each solution can help you meet your requirements.
- Using Third party shopping cart by gateway service provider
- Shopping cart hosted on third party website
- Self hosted Shopping cart
Shopping Cart using third party website
These are the simple and less expensive solution of all of the shopping cart solution we going to talk here.
Introduction
In this solution you host the website with listening all the products using content management system or simple html pages and add to cart button next to each product or item.
When user clicks on the add to cart button it takes to the third party website and save in its shopping cart. There is no shopping cart script require to be installed.
Now you must be thinking how to add an add to cart button? well you don’t need to worry, because cart hosting website provide you complete simple steps to generate different buttons. you just copy & paste into your static html pages.
Examples:
Advantages:
- Simple to setup
- Cost effective in short term goals
- Secure and Trusted service provider to gain customer satisfaction
- Easy to manage from provider control panel
Disadvantages
- Less control over the shopping cart and user interaction
- Not a reliable solution for long term goals.
- only suitable for small businesses
- Gateway commission may be higher
these were few pros and crones of the solution i tried to explain above. will move to next solution and see how those work out.
to be continued….